“Just promise me you’ll stop taking them, Tamia,” I said. “Do you promise?” I wanted her to say yes and hand me the bottle, but she wasn’t a little girl and we weren’t in college anymore, so I had to tread lightly.
“Troy, please. I have it under control. Maybe you should stop worrying about me and worry about yourself.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“It means that maybe you need to be more focused on school,” she snapped. “You’re just getting by, as usual.”
I sat back in my seat and looked at Tamia. While her words hurt, it was more out of the element of timing than ignorance of her opinion. We’d had the same argument before about my grades. I’d always been a solid B+ student. I excelled just enough to get my professors’ attention in most of my classes. Learning came easily to me and I didn’t have to put much effort into my studies to excel. I studied enough to get enough A’s to keep my G.P.A. above 3.7. I was perfectly okay with that. I liked being social and enjoying life. Tamia was the opposite. While she was no stranger to partying with me and Tasha, she took her studies very seriously. She spent most of her nights locked up in the library learning like it was going out of style. Whenever I pointed out that she needed a break, she usually snarled at me and pointed out my own academic shortcomings. Often I listened to her and promised to spend more nights nestled up to books, but most times I told her I’d be waiting for her by the bar when she would be done. Sometimes I thought she resented me for this. I mean, while I put in a little less effort than her, we did both get degrees from the same school and we were both attending the same top tier law school. She was at the top of the class, but I wasn’t far behind. The good old B+ was still paying off.
“That was uncalled for,” I said, as the professor walked in. “Don’t try to turn this around.”
“Look,” she whispered, “I have it under control. Just let me handle it.”
“Okay, everyone, close those books and put the notes away,” Professor Banks said, standing in the front of the room.
“Are you serious?” I asked, still looking at Tamia.
“Just leave it alone, T—”
“Ladies, can I please have your attention?” I looked up to find Professor Banks looking at me and Tamia.
“Sorry,” Tamia and I said together.
“Great.” Professor Banks turned and walked toward her podium. “Now we can begin, since we’re all focused.” I traded another stressed look with Tamia and put away my notes. I still wanted to talk to Tamia, but Professor Banks wasn’t exactly the kind of professor you wanted to mess with. She was the only black female law professor at NYU. She was known throughout the school as one of the hardest professors to have. Tamia and I had specifically signed up for her class. We thought she’d make a great mentor even if we had to struggle to pass her class.
On the first day, she’d said, “Five of you will drop my class by next week and five more will drop out of law school because of me, but those of you who make it will be the top attorneys in this country. You won’t
lose a case, because you survived me. You decide which group you’ll be in, because I really don’t care.” From that day on, Tamia and I sat in the front of the class and studied our asses off.
“Now, let’s see who knows the law and who doesn’t. Tamia Dinkins, stand up and brief me on every case you read last night,” Professor Banks said. Tamia stood up without flinching and starting discussing each case, near verbatim (her line name when we pledged). Something told me—and every other person in the class (including the woman at the front of the room)—that Tamia would be in the last group Professor Banks had spoken of on the first day of class. She was going to be a good attorney. It was her destiny and Tamia was fighting, even against herself, to claim it.
Super Friends: The 3T Intervention
It’s not always easy to tell a friend the truth about a bad habit. From advising her to practice safer sex to snatching her credit card when she’s about to buy the third Prada bag she can’t afford, it seems that opening an unwelcome can of worms will either lead to your best bud pulling out the old defensive armor or, worse, cutting you off completely. With this in mind, it appears that taking a bullet or turning a deaf ear are better options. But, as the old saying predicts, just as surely as there will be some good times, there will be some bad times. The best gal pals must be prepared for both—to get their hands dirty in the name of good old-fashioned, soul-saving sisterhood. So stand your ground and remember that sometimes girlfriends are the only people willing and able to tell the truth—and provide help along the way. Should you find yourself in a situation where telling the truth may make the difference between prosperity and plague, you may need to put on your “Super-Save-A-Friend” cape and have an intervention.
When and How to Intervene
1. Target the Problem—It’s not enough to simply tell your friend you think she drinks too much when you go out on Friday nights. Be prepared to explain exactly what you mean so she doesn’t take your words as a simple well-intentioned warning. If the problem is drinking, back up your declaration with facts and details. Tell her exactly how much she drinks and recall exact instances where her drinking made you feel uncomfortable or afraid.
2. Get Support—Most often, women have already discussed a budding situation long before the problem has spiraled out of control. This is okay as long as it doesn’t stop with gossiping that never reaches the ears of the person who needs to hear it most. Discuss your friend’s bad behavior only with friends closest to her and those who are directly affected by her actions. (Remember: Trust is key to any intervention. If your friend thinks you’re out blabbing her business all over town, she won’t open up and things might get worse.) Should you find a trusted witness, use her to confirm your speculations and provide your intervention with a much-needed third opinion. This will stop your friend from chalking your findings up to one person’s opinion. Be careful not to include too many people. This may make your friend feel as if she’s being ganged up on and she may resent you for discussing her actions so publicly.
3. Confront Your Friend—Where and when you perform your intervention is very important. Be sure your friend has lots of time to sit and discuss your concerns, so she doesn’t have any excuses to rush off. Never confront your friend in public or in a place that makes her feel uncomfortable. It should be somewhere where all parties can feel free to express themselves and get loud if necessary.
4. Be A Rock—Be ready for whatever will come your way. Never assume anything about anyone—not even your best friend. You may think you know her inside and out and that all she’ll do when you tell her she needs to dump her cheating man is recoil and kick you out of her house. But the reverse might happen. She may kick and scream, open up to you about what’s “really going on,” and ask you to help her throw his stuff out on the curb. Be prepared for all of the above. Cry about it. Laugh about it. Hug about it. Fight about it. Be her rock and let her know you’re not going anywhere.
5. Follow Up—Following your intervention, it’s probably a good idea to allow time to pass before you bring the topic up again. If she promised to get her credit together, don’t be a nag and insist she show you her credit score the next day. Allow some time to go by and then ask if any progress has been made. If you have already noticed a change in her behavior, mention it. If she admits that she still has done nothing, make some small suggestions if she asks.
6. Get Additional Help if Needed—If you have a friend that you believe is truly abusing her body and putting herself at risk, there may come a time when you needed to seek more help. Don’t sit by and watch her eat herself toward diabetes. Make an appointment with a nutritionist and drag sister-girl there, kicking and screaming if you have to. She may be angry with you for a while, but if she’s a good friend, she’ll know that it was all done out of love.
Step Two: Change, Change, Change
If there was one thing, any thing, you would change about yourself, what would it be?
This is the question I asked myself over and over again during the days leading up to Nana Rue’s reception. Between dodging nosy phone calls from my mother, who wanted me to come stay at home while I was “mourning” my breakup (Dad cracked under the pressure), and fighting not to pick up the phone and call Julian, I tried to think of how I might change myself in order to meet step two of the plan.
Somewhere in there, I decided that I didn’t like the idea of “changing” myself for any reason. I knew I was in serious need of a new look, as I’d been wearing my hair in the Diana Ross, free brown curls look since birth and I could stand to lose the ten pounds I’d put on since I started law school, but to “change” myself meant something was wrong with me in the first place. I just didn’t agree with that.
While I was far from conceited, I’d given up trying to impress other people with how I looked when one of my college sweethearts—a campus revolutionary with long dreadlocks—announced that he could no longer date me because my skin was too light and my hair was too straight. After getting burnt for sitting on a tanning bed for too long, trying to be his African queen, I decided that I was okay with me. Little titties, wide thighs, round tummy, light skin, and “good” hair—it was all me, it was all good and good to me.